Page 38 of Second Chance with Seth

My family…? Man, that sounded good. Although I knew I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, and instead I thanked him, and spent most of the afternoon typing out the email I needed to send him. I needed to make sure I included all the instructions, as some of them had been given to me verbally by the client during our meeting last month.Last month. That felt like another country… another life, before I knew I had a daughter… a family… a hope for something better.

I ate early, in the dining room downstairs, having grown bored with my own company. Naturally, I wished Everly could have been with me, but it was too soon for things like that, and as I ate my maple glazed duck breast, I was just grateful Helen wasn’t there.

Tanner was, though, along with his new bride… a beautiful blonde. He’d noticed me when I walked in, giving me a smile and a nod of his head. It would have been churlish to ignore him, so I smiled back. They were just ordering their meal, and we ate separately, although he came over once I’d finished and asked if I wanted to join them for coffee. I wasn’t the best of company, and I had a lot on my mind, but I didn’t want to appear anti-social on my return to the town, so I agreed, escorting Tanner back to their table.

He introduced me to Zara, who looked up at me as we shook hands with a slightly wary expression. She was polite enough, but seemed a little restrained as we all sat down and Tanner ordered coffee. Her attitude struck me as odd. Okay, so she wasyoung, but not that much younger than Everly, and yet, she seemed instantly distrusting of me, even though we’d never met.

“How did you meet?” I asked, once the waitress had poured our coffee and gone away again.

“I swept her off of her feet,” Tanner said.

“You knocked me off of my feet.” Zara shook her head at him, smiling. “There’s a difference.”

“You didn’t mind, though,” he said, and her smile widened before he looked back at me. “Sorry.” He didn’t look even remotely contrite. “What we’re not explaining very well is that I was walking down Main Street, and I sent Zara flying, because I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Fortunately, I didn’t do her any lasting damage. I just forgot to ask her name, or where she lived, or to get her number.”

I chuckled, sipping my coffee.

“So, how did you end up together?”

“Because Zara had just started teaching at Nash’s school, and as fate would have it, Sabrina asked me to take him in on the first day of the semester… which was where I was lucky enough to bump into Zara again, with slightly less catastrophic results.”

They smiled at each other, holding hands across the table, and I nodded my head, remembering that Everly told me Zara had come to the town to start a job at the elementary school. She probably knew Helen, and I wondered if she’d heard something about me from her, and whether that was why she was being so offhand.

“Speaking of Sabrina,” I said, to keep the conversation going, “how are things with her these days?”

“They don’t improve,” Tanner said, shaking his head.

“Not at all?”

“No. That’s the main reason we came here tonight. We hadn’t intended to eat out, but I took Nash back to Sabrina’splace this evening, and she met me on the doorstep and announced that she’s taking him away for Easter.”

“Was that news?” I asked.

“Absolutely. Although that’s not the worst of it. Nash should have been coming to us, at least over the weekend of Easter itself, but Sabrina’s booked for them to go away for a week from the previous Tuesday.”

“So you won’t be seeing him at all?”

“We will, because Sabrina wants him to come here from the Wednesday after they get back until the following weekend. According to her, she’ll have too much work to catch up on, and she won’t be able to have Nash in the house at the same time.”

“Has she forgotten you work too?” I asked, shaking my head, feeling angry on his behalf.

“Of course not. The problem is, she doesn’t care. And just to make my day, she told me she wanted me to refund her for their tickets.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “I told her I’d pay for Nash, but not her. She called me a few names, most of which I couldn’t repeat in civilized company, and I left. When I got home, we decided to come here for dinner.”

“Why here?” I asked, wondering if the hotel held some kind of sentimental value for them.

“Because I used to bring Sabrina here,” Tanner said, surprising me. “It felt like the perfect time to lay that ghost to rest. Heaven knows what she’ll do now. Either she’ll be forced to cancel the vacation because she doesn’t want to pay her own way, or she’ll just make my life a misery because I’m refusing to foot the bill for her lifestyle. Whichever it is, it won’t be fun.”

I noticed him squeeze Zara’s hand and wondered what it must be like to live that kind of nightmare. I couldn’t imagine Everly and me ever getting at each other like that, but Tannerhad probably felt the same way. He’d probably thought he was happy… before he discovered Sabrina cheated on him.

I could see the bond between him and Zara, though, and how happy they were together. For a moment, I wondered about making my excuses and leaving them to talk. It felt like they probably needed to, and I gulped down my coffee, getting ready to make a move, just as Tanner said, “So, you’re back,” like he was stating the obvious, which he was.

“Yes.”

He nodded his head. “For good?”

---